• California: Inmates Risk Their Lives Alongside Firefighters for $2 Per Day
    31 replies, posted
https://www.newsweek.com/california-wildfires-inmates-prisoners-firefighters-1061905 indentured servitude tho
The prison system is so fucked up that it isn't even funny
Well, it's voluntary, so it's not really indentured servitude. People volunteer to fight fires all the time for nothing. Most of the firefighters here in Australia who fight bushfires get nothing except thanks for their work. Frankly, firefighting is probably a good thing for them. It will teach them useful skills, teamwork and a sense of responsibility. It also probably looks really good when they stand in front of a parole board.
They also get 2 days removed from their sentence for each day worked. I guess they would count that more valuable than the meager earnings
When American sentences tend to be several decades to several lifetimes long I'm not sure shaving off a few days will do much for them.
I don't think you can "volunteer" in an environment of incarceration. There's no choice between sitting in a shitty cell all day and going out to perform an extremely dangerous job for peanuts a day when chances are they wouldn't be hired when they get out. Also; Juvenile delinquents are also eligible for the program, at least 58 youth offenders are currently fighting active wildfires. Excuse me? They're using child labour to boot? Fuck this system. They aren't risking their lives. The state is risking their lives for them.
There's an excellent documentary on Netflix called Fire Chasers that goes in-depth into the inmate firefighting program. Excellent show and tons of good info in it. Fire Chasers | Netflix Official Site
We let 16 year olds fight fires here. I doubt they're letting little kids go out and fight fires, they're not exactly physically suitable for it.
You're still sending out minors to fight the single largest wildfire in state history, within a state know pretty well for its wildfires. I also have difficulty believing the perfect saints of the American prison system would have qualms with sending the underage out to do what amounts to slave labour.
If they commit a serious crime they go into the general population as soon as they're 18. They deliberately don't let serious offenders near juvenile offenders to stop them from influencing them.
Fair point. The fact that the official tweet had decided to explicitly say that they have Youth Offenders working among them however does not fill me with confidence that they are late sentence adults, and I stand by my point that staying in a cell with a longer sentence vs being conscripted into working a highly dangerous field in a highly dangerous scenario for peanuts in hopes of getting a few days knocked off your sentence as being a completely bogus "choice". This is a cost saving measure above all else and as I said, there is no guarantee that a job with the firefighters would be even remotely guaranteed with this kind of "volunteer" work.
There is no choice when coerced with bogus crime charges and a desperate need for money upon release. Many offenders commit crimes specifically to stay off the homeless streets; of course they're going to take anything they can get to regain freedom and the hope of a financial kickstart. This does not excuse being paid under minimum wage. It's theft.
This is fucking terrible.
Whilst it's true that American sentencing is often disproportionate, I do see value in this for people serving 10 years or so. Any day removed from being imprisoned would be worth it in my eyes. I don't think they should only be getting paid $2, but I do see the value in the program for inmates overall.
Surely getting paid AND days off their sentence is worth it? I mean...you commit a crime, you either get to sit bored out of your mind or you can volunteer and help save lives and property of the society you screwed AND you get a good kickback.
Two dollars per day is not a good kickback. It's around 1/7 minimum wage at a full day's work, or 1/14 if you consider the "living wage" to be twice that. Money isn't something you should be able to use to pay your way out of jail, so any money being given for a job worked shouldn't be considered payment towards freedom. Work deserves fair compensation, and a reformative jail system ought to provide working opportunities as a way of helping prevent repeat offenders, not as a way to help corporations remain obscenely wealthy. Many crimes don't even "screw society", as you say. They specifically don't allow the worst offenders to participate; how many of these inmates, I wonder, are in for drug possession charges?
"Tend to be?" Are you purposely spreading misinformation, or are you misinformed yourself? For drug offences, which if I'm remembering right are the largest chunk of prison sentences, it isn't the case. Justice dep't sources show that the average prison sentence is 3 years. The average time served is less than that. https://www.bjs.gov/content/dcf/ptrpa.cfm Highest average for violent offenders is 8 yrs, in Commiefornia. It's about 6 in Arizona. I'd quote, but it's weird on mobile. I'd wager time served is probably less for these, similar to the above. https://www.newsweek.com/prison-sentences-increased-2017-jail-639952 Where in the world did you get your numbers from? I'd bet anyone in for either of these types of offenses would love to have the opportunity to get commissary funds and shave years off their sentence, and get out of the prison for a while.
Since it's voluntary I don't see anything wrong with this. There are people out there who risk their lives doing volunteer work for literally nothing. This at least gives prisoners something positive to do while also gaining work experience that they can then benefit from once they get out of prison.
Minimum wage is already too low, this is less than half of even that
In California, Prisoners leave prison in debt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-to-stay_(imprisonment) And also, Debtors Prisons are a thing again. Prosecutors and Judges Have Brought Back Debtors’ Prisons | The ..
Lmao you work your ass off risking your life onto to be in debt for being in prison and being put back into prisoners again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roNlgIY9QKw
What % of these people actually get hired when they get out? Ex-cons in general have enormous trouble getting employed, and I don't see a fire station hiring convicted felons. Prisons, like many other American institutions, require enormous reforms. There should be an actual system for reintegrating prisoners into society and helping them find employment, and they shouldn't be getting paid fucking pennies for dangerous work. I also think it's very disingenuous to lock someone in a concrete box and then give them a way to make things slightly less shitty and call that "volunteering." As it stands, this is a feelgood measure that exploits the cheap cost of prison labor and gives morally conflicted people a chance to pat themselves on the back and say "we're helping prisoners build character," when the reality is you're not helping these people at all.
Whoa whoa, the framing here is fucking this up. Wildland forest fighting classes are one of the most beneficial vocational programs to have in prison. Even when they don't go on to become a firefighter on release, the chance that they will recidivate drops significantly. They also get to feel like society values them and that they are important. Which sounds like bullshit, but feeling as though society views them as something other than a worthless felon is critical. If nothing else, I'd rather take my chances fighting a fire than being in prison in terms of "risking my life"
I agree. Being paid a dollar an hour to perform an extremely dangerous job side by side to professionals who earn around 70.000 a year really makes me feel like a stand up member of society. It totally wouldn't make me feel like a cog in a system that is well known for effectively being a source for slave labour in the US. I also love how you reduce how dangerous it is to fight proper wildfires to begin with, and that (as stated) this is the single worst wildfire in state history. Maybe you're a pro firefighter yourself and feel this task is easy, but if I was being jumped from prison into this environment with 2 week training, I'd feel overwhelmed.
maybe you would feel overwhelmed but someone whos been siting in a cramped room for the past x months is probably more than willing to go out there fight forest fires or sit around and fight your cellmate i seriously dont get why theres a problem with this its a volunteer program lol no one is being forced to burn to death
I dont get the fuss, if its voluntary, then you shouldnt even expect compensation in the first place.
Sorry, was on my phone at the time, didn't post the requisite links. https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article-abstract/59/4/437/1618476 http://digitalrepository.unm.edu/soc_etds/12/ . In one of the work programs the subjects worked with state forestry employees, performing land clearing, work on structures, prescribed burns, and wild-land firefighting. This program produced character-changing results, including increases in self-esteem, recognition of personal agency, increased sense of responsibility, and pride in their work. The subjects who participated in the forestry work program also were the least likely to have been reincarcerated within six months of their release. There is a growing body of research that programs like these are weirdly effective. Humans don't like to rot in prison accomplishing nothing and creating a program that allows them to feel like a part of society again (we value firefighters) while teaching them work ethic, work skills, and returning some measure of dignity and self esteem to their lives is shockingly effective at reducing recidivism. In terms of the danger, we've lost 1,128 wildland firefighters from 1910 to 2017. Which is a large number, but when you consider that it is over the course of a century, I'm amazed that number isn't higher. https://www.nifc.gov/safety/safety_documents/Fatalities-by-Year.pdf Most of wildland firefighting is digging/cutting line. Basically you get a bunch of people with chainsaws and pulaski tools and you cut a path of forest out so that the fire can't move beyond it. While it certainly generates injuires like all manual labor, it mostly isn't nearly as dangerous as you would imagine. Especially in modern times with modern tactics and communication equipment. This is why you can get away with a couple of weeks of training for these guys. The job isn't terribly complicated for most of the folks on the ground. Career firefighters are the ones doing the more involved stuff for the most part.
How about being paid a dollar an hour to perform an extremely dangerous job side by side with volunteers who are getting paid nothing? California has a large population of volunteer firefighters, as has already been mentioned in the thread.
Even in Scandinavia prisoners don't get paid a living wage. https://www.kriminalvarden.se/swedish-prison-and-probation-service/rehabilitation/ Prisoners earn 13 Swedish krona/hour for all occupational activites. 13 Krona is about $1.43. A big part of low prison pay is that unless you're in an awful prison where being in prison puts you into debt (which is California prison's real problem) you don't have any expenses. The real issue is if people are forced to work.
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